Merry Christmas Eve! 🎄✨

Happy Dec. 24th from Japan🎅❤️About to head out and get some ingredients for mulled wine! Here are the two recipes from my recent vlog if you wanted to try making them yourself:

🍷Mulled Wine🍷

Add 750ml water to a pot. Boil cloves, crushed cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks, fresh ginger slices, and the peel of two oranges together for 10 minutes. Turn off and let steep for at least 3 hours. Can store this in a bottle in the fridge until you're ready to make wine! To make it just add the steeped mixture to a pot with 1/2cup - 1 cup sugar (depending on how sweet you like it), add a bottle of cheap red wine, and boil 🍷✨

🍓Jam Shortbread Squares 🍓

Shortbread Crust:

- 1 cup Butter or Margarine

- 1/2 cup Powdered Sugar

- 2 cups White Flour

- 1/4 tsp. Salt (if using unsalted butter)

- 1 tsp. Almond Extract

Mix all ingredients together and put 1/2 of mixture into a square baking pan.  Pat down with fork or fingers and work up the sides of the baking pan.  Spread 1 cup Raspberry Jam on top of crust in baking pan.  

Using small portions of the remaining dough at a time roll out on floured board into rectangular strips and lattice them on top of jam.  Bake at 325F for about 35-40 min. or until golden brown.  Cool before cutting into bars.

Please share photos with me on twitter or insta if you try them! ❤️

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

December suddenly became SUPER busy for me, Ryotaro invited me out on a trip to Iwate (videos from that should be up in January, I'm waiting for him to edit his!) We visited a few different spots all around the prefecture, but the best part was our stop at an apple farm to learn about a very expensive variety of apple that they grow, and why the price is so high! 🍎

They gave me a box of apples to take home and sadly I've finished them all now. Wish I could get them in Sendai, they were amazing 😍

After that was the trip to Aomori for a TC video! We got lucky and there was a huge unexpected snow storm the day we were filming ☃️

We went to a few spots for the TC video that I didn't show in my vlog, so make sure to check it out when it's up on their channel! ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/c/TokyoCreativePlay 

I'm really curious about the little moss gardens they were selling at the tourist info center, has anyone here ever tried to make or take care of one? I'm really bad with plants so I'm not sure if I should invest in one or not haha. 

And then a couple days ago Norm popped up to Sendai to film some livestreams with me! We headed to Matsushima Bay for his - had never been there in the winter! The sky was really clear so we had a nice view of the islands. 

AND I finally got to see the garden that was closed every time I visit Matsushima (we made it there just before closing lol). It was really beautiful, I definitely want to go back in Autumn I feel like it will be at its peak then🍂

And now I'm finally back home to rest for a bit over Christmas! Underneath my tree is filled with presents for Maro, he had fun watching me wrap them😂Going to watch the new Leo DiCaprio movie that's up on Netflix tonight and have a chill Christmas Eve at home with some mulled wine. What do you guys have planned? ❤️